From Partnership to Resistance: Unions and Organizational Learning at Ericsson Infocom

Abstract

In recognizing that much mainstream literature on organizational learning is overwhelmingly managerial, this article explores learning as an appropriate framework for studying organizations at the level of sub-systems or subcultures. It is thus argued that there is an interesting agenda to be pursued by the critical researcher on seeing organizational learning as a means of analysing both co-operation and conflict over the labour process from a bottom-up perspective. In practical terms, in highly organized contexts with established collective bargaining, this means study of collective learning in workplace trade union organizations. The setting of Ericsson Infocom at Norrképing, Sweden, is selected for empirical study. An adaptation of Dixon's model of experiential organizational learning of the local unions identifies two distinct modes of learning, each reflecting different post-Fordist strategies for managing the labour process: initially multiskilled teamworking and subsequently outsourcing. The former mode reflects the actions and discourse of negotiated partnership with the employer, whilst the latter reflects the actions and discourse of resistance.